UNI320Y: Canadian Questions:
Issues and Debates
Week 8: Citizenship and Border Control
Professor Emily Gilbert
http://individual.utoronto.ca/emilygilbert/
Citizenship and Border Control
I.
Multiculturalism and Essentialized
Identities
II. Non-Citizens: Deportations and
Detentions
III. Border Control and Security Technologies
I: Multiculturalism and Essentialized
Identities
Multiculturalism (1971; 1988)
 Scholars Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka
 Recent emphasis on business links and global
competitiveness
Yasmeen Abu-Laban
 Multiculturalism


as inclusionary discourse around citizenship
as processes whereby minority collectivities might
gain recognition, protection and rights
Debates over:
 ‘Difference blindness’ vs. special recognition and
valuing of difference
 Cultural identity vs. individual rights
 Problems arise with essentialism


Eg “clash of civilizations” of Samuel Huntington
Variation of ‘cold war’ polarization
 Cultural essentialism poses challenge to ethics
of liberalism and liberal democracy
Towards anti-essentialism:
 Wouldn’t assume that entire culture
or community as one thing
 Would take seriously economics,
politics, history, different
interpretations of history, and
genuine grievances
Postmulticultural (Burman)
 denotes “history of awkward, topdown diversity management”
(Burman)
 Assumption that culture = ancestral
origin
 Advocates cultural hybridity
Hérouxville
 Jan 2007: passes
rules for
immigrants
Feb 2007: Premier Charest establishes Commission for
Consultation on Accommodation Practices regarding
Cultural Differences
 Co-chaired by Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor
Mandate:



to draw up an accurate portrayal of how exactly
accommodations are being made;
to conduct a wide-scale inquiry in all regions of the
province to find out what Quebecers are really
thinking “beyond polls and spontaneous reactions;”
to come up with recommendations on how
accommodations can be made that are “respectful of
the common values of Quebecers.”
II: Non-Citizens: Deportations and
Detentions
Post 9/11, security, and the “immigrant menace”
Bill



C-36: Anti-Terrorism Act
Passed in House of Commons 190 – 47
Received Royal Assent Dec 18, 2001
“creates measures to identify, prosecute, convict
and punish terrorist groups; provides new
investigative tools to law enforcement and national
security agencies; and ensures that Canadian values
of respect and fairness are preserved and the root
causes of hatred are addressed through stronger
laws against hate crimes and propaganda”
http://www.justice.gc.ca/en/news/nr/2001/doc_27787.html
 Bill C-36 defines a terrorist act as one committed
"for a political, religious or ideological purpose,
objective or cause."
 Towards ethnic and racial profiling?
 Oct 24, 2006: Superior Court judge strikes down
motive clause – Mohammed Momin Khawaja
case
 Concerns over investigative powers, eg: 'secret'
trials, preemptive detention, electronic
surveillance
 Creating “an alien from within”? (Macklin)
 But 5-year sunset clause on provisions
that:


Allows police to arrest suspects without warrant
and detain them for 3 days without charges if
police believe a terrorist act may be committed.
Allows a judge to compel a witness to testify in
secret about past associations or perhaps pending
acts under penalty of going to jail if the witness
doesn't comply.
 Feb 27, 2007: House of Commons vote 159 124 against renewing the provisions
Deportations –
Mohamed Cherfi: deported to US in 2004
Detentions –
Secret Trial Five: Mohammad Mahjoub (20002007), Mahmoud Jaballah (2001-2007), Hassan
Almrei (2001-), Adil Charkaoui (2003-2005),
Mohamed Harkat (2002-2006)
Security certificates:
 Signed by Solicitor General, Minister of CIC, and
endorsed by Federal Court Judge
 All immigration proceedings suspended
 Foreign nationals are detained, as may be
permanent residents
 Federal Court decides whether security
certificates are unreasonable
 Since 1978: 28 security certificates issued
 Dec 2004: Federal Court of Appeal rules that
security certificates are constitutional
 non-citizens and permanent residents can be
subjected to a different standard of legal
treatment
 Feb 2007: Supreme Court strikes down security
certificate system as is because violates Charter:
9 – 0 ruling
 One year delay to allow Parliament time to write
new law
No One Is Illegal
The No One is Illegal campaign is in full confrontation with
Canadian colonial border policies, denouncing and taking action
to combat racial profiling of immigrants and refugees, detention
and deportation policies, and wage-slave conditions of migrant
workers and non-status people.
We struggle for the right for our communities to maintain their
livelihoods and resist war, occupation and displacement, while
building alliances and supporting indigenous sisters and brothers
also fighting theft of land and displacement.
Place and belonging: nation and city
Diasporic city:
extra-territorial connections
‘sedimented’ relations
multiplicity
absence and presence
rhythms of mobile and immobilized
Henri Lefebvre: differential space
III: Border Control and Security
Technologies
 Securitizing Citizenship post 9/11
 Increased border security and need for
documentation
 Move towards national ID cards?
Permanent Resident Card
 introduced with revised IRP Act, Feb
2001, enacted June 2002
 replaces IMM 1000 Record of Landing
 Applies to about 1.5 million permanent
residents
 First ICAO card
 Laser engraved
photo
 Personal data
 Optical memory
stripe with 1.1 mgb
of data
 Embedded hologram
 Has capacity to hold
biometric data
 Valid for 5 years
States: producing their populations
 Fixing identities, creating legible population
UN: Write me Down, Make Me Real
 Initiative to register all children at birth
 Launched by Archbishop Desmond Tutu
 Aim: to register the 48 million children whose
births go unrecorded each year
 Registration affirmed in Article 7 of UN
Convention on Rights of Child
Biometrics
Biosurveillance
Biopolitics
Creating useful state subjects,
responsible immigrants

Bordering: outsiders and outsiders-within—(Sunera
Thobani)

The other: stock exchange of security: trading on defined
enemies (Didier Bigo)

Managing the population: eg mobility rights

Internalization of borders: not just at a fixed territorial line
but internalized

Technologies of control (detention) and strategies of
exclusion (deportation) (Peter Nyers)